2008
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
Woody’s Worst
Usually to suggest that a director’s films exist within a league by themselves is high praise—an accolade best bestowed upon only the most revered architects of the craft. And while this is certainly true of Woody Allen, the fact that his films stand alone has less to do with his talents as a filmmaker and […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Film Shorts
25TH REEL MUSIC FESTIVAL All screenings take place at the Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. FABRICATING TOM ZÉ Tom Zé was the oddball in the Brazilian Tropicália movement of the late ’60s. Creating artful, bizarre music from disparate sources (including traditional favela folksongs and musique concrète), he fell into obscurity while peers Caetano Veloso and […]
Posted inSavage Love
Savage Love
Wanted: Russian Bride
While visiting my family for the holidays, my 72-year-old father informed me that a 29-year-old Russian woman was coming to America to be with him. He could hardly contain his excitement. Dad didn’t want me to tell my brother and sister, because he knew they would be critical of him being with a 29-year-old Russian […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Horses Don’t Act Like That
Ned Visits a Sparkly, Rainbow-Hued Land of Wonderment, My Little Pony Live!
This past weekend, the cultural event of the season took place at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts’ Newmark Theatre. The VEE Corporation (makers of Sesame Street Live!) brought the highly anticipated My Little Pony Live! to the Portland stage—much to the delight of the city’s four-year-old girls and grown-up gay potheads. For the […]
Posted inMusic
Our Town Could be Your Life
Swan Island
In a move to match January’s sun-less gloom, Swan Island—Portland’s preeminent practitioners of post-punk, pre-apocalyptic proto-metal—announced this week they are going on “indefinite hiatus,” effective immediately. The five-woman-strong, unerringly riff-ready band—which many consider to be today’s stewards of our city’s politically progressive, hard-rockin’, feminist musical tradition—will be playing their final set at Holocene on Thursday, […]
Posted inMusic
Once More with Feeling
Spindrift
With The Legend of God’s Gun, Los Angeles’ Spindrift have recorded one of the greatest film soundtracks ever set to tape. Of course, odds are you haven’t seen the film. It’s a small-budget feature of the same name that centers on the band’s thrilling score, which makes it the rarest of romances between cinema and […]
Posted inNews
Knock Knock
Jeff Bissonnette Goes Door to Door for Support
No one answers the door the first time city council candidate Jeff Bissonnette knocks. He tries the house’s dolphin-shaped knocker instead, hoping someone answers this door on N Edison, just a few blocks from his own St. Johns home. “I’m running on a platform of helping Portland to be a city that works better,” Bissonnette […]
Posted inNews
Sten-sational!
Erik Sten Woos Old Town with $400 Million
City Commissioner Erik Sten defied expectations last week by appearing to win over the majority of 150 hostile Old Town neighbors, crammed into the basement of Central City Concern’s office on NW 6th to discuss Sten’s proposed homeless center in the district. Weathering his fair share of grief and apologizing for not including neighbors in […]
Posted inNews
Special Circumstances
Campaign Commission Won’t Bend Rules
On Monday night, January 14, just days after the city council created a special election to replace outgoing City Commissioner Erik Sten, Portland’s Citizen Campaign Commission had a big decision to make, one that will very likely impact the outcome of the race: Should they craft special public financing rules for the surprise special election? […]
Posted inMusic
Trans-Europa Express
Across the old country with Dan Deacon
Photos by Chester Gwazd (1) The first three days of tour were off days spent in Dublin. It was totally rad beyond belief. Highlights included visiting Newgrange, an ancient stone structure built to perfectly align with the dawn on the winter solstice. Old-age New Age. (2) Dublin is hands down one of my favorite cities […]
Posted inNews
Blue Numbers
Cops Take Aim at People of Color
New numbers show Portland’s police are pointing their guns at African Americans more often than they are at the city’s white residents, and that per capita, African Americans are five times more likely to have force used against them in a police encounter than whites. Of 87,004 arrests made citywide between September 2004 and December […]